Jesus Of Nazareth Calms The Storm On The Lake: What Are The Storms In Your Life? Series

"In April 1988 the evening news reported on a photographer who was a skydiver. He had jumped from a plane along with numerous other skydivers and filmed the group as they fell and opened their parachutes. On the film shown on the telecast, as the final skydiver opened his chute, the picture went berserk. The announcer reported that the cameraman had fallen to his death, having jumped out of the plane without his parachute. It wasn't until he reached for the absent ripcord that he realized he was freefalling without a parachute. Until that point, the jump probably seemed exciting and fun. But tragically, he had acted with thoughtless haste and deadly foolishness. Nothing could save him, for his faith was in a parachute never buckled on. Faith in anything but an all-sufficient God can be just as tragic spiritually. Only with faith in Jesus Christ dare we step into the dangerous excitement of life." -Unknown.

Today we’re looking at three parables of Jesus, and a classic incident in the mystery of Jesus life and ministry.

The three parables we’ll look at are the lamp on the stand, the growing seed, and the mustard seed.

Then we’ll look at the event which happened at the end of Mark 4, where the disciples cross a lake and find themselves in the midst of a brutal storm.

So I want to move pretty quickly through the parables as a review, and then focus in for the rest of our time on the event in the boat.

Let’s take a look at the parable of the lamp on the stand. It says this:

He said to them, “Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.”

“Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” -Mark 4:21-25

Very simply, Jesus is telling his disciples that what I’m telling you in parables, in riddles, in a hidden way, I want you to tell everyone. That is our challenge. Jesus is very strategic, keeping his message slightly hidden, to prevent an explosion too large, but he says tactically speaking now you must tell everyone.

Interestingly, in the NASB translation of this chapter, the parable of lamp is left as part of the parable of the sower. As if Jesus were illustrating the last line of the parable of the sower, verse 20 which says, “And those are the ones sown with seed on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much.”

So it would connect with the fact that the good seed on good soil produces a multiplied harvest. The seed planted in good soil produces more seed that is spread and produces a harvest. The good seed spreads because we shine brightly, and we don't cover our message over.

And he includes this warning: With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. If you share little, you’ll receive nothing, even what you have will be taken away and given to others. But, if you share much, if you get that message out there, you’ll be rewarded greatly. Don’t hide it, Jesus commands them, share it.

We’re moving very fast here, next the growing seed says this:

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” -Mark 4:26-29

Jesus is saying here, don’t think that you are the one who is going to make the kingdom of God grow. You simply scatter seeds to the grounds. Just like the seed sower in the parable of the sower. And over weeks and months, after the crop is planted, the seeds grow in the soil on their own.

I think sometimes we try to force the seed to grow, even seed in rocky soil or seed among weeds, and it doesn’t grow and we get upset. But we simply must cast the seed to the soil, and God makes it grow, just like any crop is planted and God causes it to grow.